


Lone Bat

by ImaKaraTabiHe



Series: Robin or Crow? [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Batman: Son of Batman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bat Family, Batcave, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family Issues, Hurt Damian, Negligence, Running Away, Sad, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6508084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaKaraTabiHe/pseuds/ImaKaraTabiHe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian's joined the Bat family in outside appearance, but he's come to realize that neither blood nor name make him family.  When things start going downhill and no one notices, Damian does the only thing he can - he runs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lone Bat

  
Wayne Manor is a dark household, filled with nightmares of the past and echoes of fading happiness.  The walls seem to cave in like bars on a cage.  At least, that's how Damian sees it.  To the other members of the Wayne family, it's their home, their safe haven.  Not to Damian.  He's alone.  
  
Ever since he joined the family as the youngest member, he's had nothing but dislike for his new residence.  He couldn't, wouldn't call it home.  Home is a place you feel safe and happy in, and this was certainly not his home.  He couldn't smile like Drake could.  He couldn't relax like Grayson could.  He couldn't even be himself like Todd could.  
  
There was no doubt in his mind that despite being the blood son of Bruce Wayne, he was the furthest, most distant being from their family.  He might've been a Wayne in blood, but he wasn't a Wayne in reality.  He was more than well aware of that, even when he became Robin.  
  
Nobody seemed to get it.  To get him.  They could only call Damian 'cold' and a 'demon child'.  But he was okay with that.  It was one of the things that kept him from trying to become attached to his residence and his new 'family'.  Damian wasn't welcome there, and he knew it.  
  
Donning the uniform of Batman's young partner, Robin, had been his way of finding his own niche in their inner workings.  It was also the best way he could find to relieve stress.  Sure he had to follow Batman's 'no kill' rules, but it was better than being back there.  At that place.  
  
He tried to smile once, but it had ended up coming out as a sneer that Drake called him out on and they fought.  Physically.  It was then that Damian decided he was better off not showing emotions.  He would show the disgusted ones, the haughty ones, but never the ones that showed he cared.  
  
Although he didn't belong there, he was capable of caring for his house mates and he did, just not in any ways they would ever notice.  He helped Alfred Pennyworth, the butler and family friend of the Wayne family sometimes.  Pennyworth seemed to understand him a little.  It was empathy, not pity.  Had it been pity he would've set fire to the library and watched the flames dance with a spark in his eyes.  No, Pennyworth had offered him anything but disappointment and pity.  
  
When Todd needed someone and no one noticed, Damian got Dick.  When Drake was unhappy at the Manor, missing his friends, Damian put in a subtle call.  When Grayson felt overwhelmed, Damian would tell his Father.  When his Father was stressed to the point of wrecking his health, Damian got Pennyworth.  And when Pennyworth needed some help, well, he was there.  
  
He cared.  He honestly did.  How couldn't he when he finally got the family that he'd never had?  Sure, it wasn't where he belonged, but they said he was family.  They took him in.  It was his responsibility to make sure that they were happy and healthy from the shadows.  Even if they never knew it was him, it was good enough.  
  
It was hard to interact the way that they seemed to.  Damian just couldn't help the way that he'd been taught to speak and act.  It was him.  Anything other than that made him awkward and lost.  It's no wonder his al Ghul prince act was the cause of so many fights, but he could live with that.  It's not like they were going to welcome him into their family if he just told them how he couldn't help it.  
  
They never saw through his act.  They caught hints, little flickers every now and then but it wasn't enough for them it seemed.  Damian had been terrified when he'd accidentally opened his mouth and suggested that they go to one of Drake's favorite ice cream shops for his birthday to Todd and Grayson (he never included himself in it).  They'd been shocked, stunned, and highly suspicious but Damian had waved it away.  Literally with his usual 'holier-than-thou' routine as Drake called it.  He tried not to let the ache in his heart show when he watched the three brothers head happily out for the cold dessert.  
  
Damian was more relaxed around Todd, who seemed to be oblivious to that fact.  Todd had been resurrected by al Ghul's Lazarus Pit.  It had been his family's doing.  Todd had tasted the taint of the Pit and al Ghul and had taken lives as a criminal hunting vigilante.  Damian knew his pain.  He knew what it took to kill and how deeply that desire seeded itself in one's soul.  He thought to talk to his Father about it once, but Todd wasn't his brother.  Todd didn't want anything to do with him and he understood.  
  
Damian was fine with the way things were going.  He kept to himself and they stayed their happy, little dysfunctional family.  At least, he assumed he was fine.  But when he started having dreams of being included in their family, reality… waking up was like another nail in his coffin.  Like another wall built between him and happiness.  That was when things started going downhill.  
  
To say no one noticed the changes in Damian, their youngest Bat, was bit much, but nonetheless it was more true than false.  There were times when Damian would smile, a bit too smug for their liking, but it was a smile all the same.  He seemed to smile more genuinely when it was just him and Alfred as they had observed before.  He only truly ever smiled at Titus and his cat, Alfred.  When even those smiles faded, the whole house noticed.  
  
It wasn't just the smiles, because that was a small thing to notice.  It was the frowns.  Or lack of.  Damian's lips were almost always curved downwards in what seemed to be a perpetual frown either in disappointment, disgust, or anger.  When the frowns faded and were replaced with blank looks and dull voices.  That was what really concerned them.  
  
Tim tried not to fight with him, although in truth it was more like arguing with a wall because Damian stopped arguing back.  He'd throw some facts back but he'd never have out with it as he used to.  
  
Dick tried hugging him more and softly encouraged him to tell them what was wrong, but Damian would just stare at him and tell him that his hugs were better suited to the rest of the family instead of him.  
  
Jason tried to get him to team up with him on patrol.  That was easily accepted.  Except Damian wouldn't speak to him.  No smug remark, no egging him on.  
  
Alfred made him his favorites one night for dinner at the Manor but Damian only nodded and said a quiet 'thank you'.  
  
When all four failed to draw their youngest out of his blank state, they rounded on Bruce to get answers.  Bruce tried, of course, but not even Batman could get the answers out of his youngest son.  He was only told that he should take the boys to get ice cream.  'Drake would enjoy it.'  
  
No one was really sure when Damian had started to pull inside himself.  They would never had expected him to, but now that he had they had no idea what to do.  When Bruce offered that they might wait and let Damian come to them, they agreed, some with a guilty joy of not having to bring Damian out of whatever mood he was in.  So things continued as normal, at least for everyone but Damian.  His family couldn't see that he was sinking further than ever.  
  
Eventually he stopped eating with them, ate less, talked even less than before.  He stopped playing with Titus and only absently petted Alfred.  Schoolwork was normal for him, he passed everything will flying colors.  But he seemed so empty.  
  
Robin seemed to be his only sanctuary.  It was the only thing he put his full efforts into.  Yet it seemed that the harder he worked in cleaning the streets of Gotham, the more the house saw him injured.  He became reckless.  They tried to let it be but when he threw himself in front of a gun and had gotten shot, shattering part of his collar bone, they knew something had to be done.  
  
The Wayne family is more often than not been none for being emotionally stunted.  They show they care through anger and yelling.  In Batman's case he scolds, lectures and grounds.  It was only natural that he tore Damian a new one for being so reckless.  Damian, silent as ever even with the pain, took it all in stride.  He nodded, listening, and simply accepted it when Batman told him that he couldn't be Robin until things changed.  
  
And that was when something inside him, something that had been breaking for such a long time, shattered.  No one asked if he was okay.  They always asked if Drake was alright after he'd been hurt on patrol.  But no one asked him.  
  
After trying to suffer through the grounding and letting his wounds heal slowly, he gave up.  “If I'm going to be invisible here, I'll damn well be better off elsewhere,” he muttered to himself as he drank a special blend of al Ghul tea that had a hint of mint leaves that had soaked in a Lazarus Pit.  It was something his mother had given him with a warning that he would heal from whatever injuries he amassed very quickly, but it would be painful.  
  
He'd thought he was prepared for the pain, but no.  It was agony, even to one so used to pain.  As soon as he'd down the entire cup of tea, fire shot through his veins, burning him from the inside out.  He couldn't even process the shattering of glass as the teacup broke upon the floor.  He tried to fall on his bed as his legs gave out but he fell right alongside the glass, surprisingly not impaling himself on any of it.  
  
Screams fought to tear their way from his throat but he bit his lip to stifle them, drawing blood.  It seemed like weeks of mind numbing agony, pain so terrible he thought he was dying and being reborn over and over and painfully over again, but when the pain dulled down and his consciousness returned he saw that it had only been 30 minutes.  
  
He stood, shakily, his mind still a bit fuzzy and ears still ringing.  It would be a long time before he dared have any more of that infernal tea.  Damian let himself stand still, waiting for the dizziness to fade before he threw his things in a black duffel bag.  His katana he put in a bokuto bag that would deceive the rest of the world.  Who would carry a sword with them after all?  A bokuto was much more believable.  
  
Damian eyed his black and gray assassins outfit.  It was dark enough to blend into any cityscape.  He thought little of his Robin uniform that lay beneath his feet in the Cave.  From it, he only took a domino mask.  Even though he was abandoning his role as one of the protectors of Gotham, leaving behind his role of Robin, he would still follow Batman's rules.  He was no longer the killer he had been when he'd first arrived.  
  
There was another bag stashed in the city that he would collect with gear he'd made especially for what happens next.  In the bag he had a modified comm, a computer, a grappling hook, several gas bombs, some antidotes, a new identity complete with bank cards and cash, and his favorite, crow shaped birdarangs.  He left behind his books and a few delicate glass figurines he'd made (consisting of a bat and three robins, which differed in size and coloring).  Damian even left behind the first edition Grimm's Fairy Tales that his father had given him as a gift.  He wouldn't need it where he was going.  
  
Slipping on the dark hoodie, he looked at himself in the mirror.  His clothes were black to help mask his presence and his duffel and bokuto bag looked heavy strung over his shoulder.  His piercing green eyes like those of his mother's.  His facial structure even resembled hers.  It was his jawline that looked more like his father's.  Had he known it wasn't him, he would wonder if the boy in the mirror was dead instead of alive.  There was a lifeless look about him, only slightly offset by the sad determined glint in his eyes.  
  
Damian turned, feet light as he slipped through his window and down onto the grounds outside.  He narrowly avoided the cameras, jumping over sensors and making his way through the weak points in the Manor's security.  He flung himself onto a branch before turning to look back at the Manor.  His last words written on a note in his elegant scrawl – I'm leaving.  He took a final look and waved once before flipping over the Manor wall and running into the surrounding forest, headed towards the city.

  
'Now they can be happy.'

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing anything involving the Bat Family, so please be gentle. I'm not used to writing dysfunctional family pieces.
> 
> I truthfully fell in love with Damian through Batman: Son of Batman (and the rest of the movies that follow) and have never read any of the comics (so please don't blame me for mistakes, I'm just using what I know). There's not as many works with Damian as the main so... yeah, I decided to do my own. Whee?
> 
> Anyways, let me know what you think. Thanks!
> 
> (PS: I may or may not write another work related to this and may it a series. Depends on how I feel, though I do have a few ideas. Also this is totally going to take time away from my other works because I've fallen for Damian.)


End file.
